Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues of Facebook Explored

Introduction

There has been remarkable growth in social networking sites, and their impact on the lives of users is a genuine phenomenon. Facebook, which has over 250 million users, has influenced the lives of many people in meaningful ways, allowing them to connect, stay in touch, and socialize through innovative platforms. Facebook has therefore raised several social, ethical, and legal concerns because of the sheer number of its users and the volume of information it contains. These issues are made more complex by the nature of the internet, which allows information to be easily shared or made accessible to large numbers of people — often strangers — within seconds. While some issues arise from specific technological aspects of the Facebook platform and its applications, a great deal of them can be mitigated by exercising simple caution about the information being shared (Goldman 2007, p. 57). This paper addresses the different social, ethical, and legal issues affecting Facebook. Multiple sides of each argument are considered, and various studies are described to explain these issues further.

Privacy Issues and Third-Party Applications

According to a study conducted at a major university, Facebook's application platform sends more personal information than is necessary to the developers of plug-ins. Anyone is able to create plug-ins, which are then placed on the personal pages of Facebook users. Personal information could then be easily harvested for identity theft by developing an application, according to Adrienne P. Felt, who led the study. Facebook officials defended their application platform, arguing that limiting access to user data would curtail the types of useful applications that could be developed and that the platform must be liberal with user information for it to function properly. They further insisted that they would deny access to any application developer who builds a malicious plug-in, as that would violate Facebook's terms of service through data misuse (Young 2008).

Since Facebook opened its platform to third-party developers in May 2007, thousands of applications have been created. Typically, a plug-in is added to the user's page and enables some information about the user to be shared with other users who have also added the same application. For instance, in Visual Bookshelf, users share a list of books they have read with their friends once they have created it. Other plug-ins have been created by college students, such as one that fills a user's Facebook page with information from a public relations office and another that allows users to search a library catalog through Facebook.

For an application to be installed in a user's profile, a box must be checked granting the application permission to track personal settings and access user information. The site also displays further warnings advising users not to add an application if they are unwilling to grant it access to their information. Ms. Felt disputes the necessity of this broad access, arguing that personal data is not important to most Facebook applications for them to perform their functions — for instance, knowing a user's birthday or friend list is not important to an application that enables a library catalog search. She argues that Facebook needs to fine-tune its settings to better protect user privacy.

Her study examined 150 of the most popular third-party plug-ins on Facebook to evaluate whether they used private information from user accounts. The results were revealing: 8.7% of the applications required no information at all; 82% used only public data such as the user's network, name, and friends list; and only 9.3% of applications required any private information, such as a birthday. Although no private information had yet been misused by Facebook developers at the time, malicious developers might do so in the future. Therefore, before randomly installing an application, users should first evaluate it. Facebook's servers do not actually run the applications — rather, they run on the developer's own servers. Whenever a user's profile is displayed, the application server contacts Facebook and requests private data about the user; the data is then processed by the application and the resulting content is sent back to the user. As part of Facebook's terms of service, developers are expected to discard any data received from Facebook once the content has been sent back to the user (Cotten 2008, p. 73).

Facebook officials defended the company's policies by claiming that limiting developers' access to user data would curtail the types of useful applications that can be developed. Several aspects of data access cannot be fine-tuned by users because the relevant settings are somewhat buried — changing them requires navigating to the privacy section and selecting the profile section. The company further claimed that security and privacy are a major priority for Facebook.

B. J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University and co-teacher of a Facebook application development course at the university, concurs that Facebook applications can access more information than is strictly necessary. However, he argues that the risks involved in using Facebook applications are minimal and involve trade-offs between benefits and risks. Since sensitive data such as social security numbers are not stored on the site, there is not much damage that could be done even if malicious application developers obtained all the information from a user's Facebook profile. He further adds that there is a high incentive for Facebook to strictly enforce its policies and ban abusive applications. Most Facebook users are aware that installed applications monitor their information. Facebook practices an ethic of openness, and being on Facebook means that a person shares certain things freely with other people.

Effect on Education

A survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that most users did not have much concern about sharing information online. Of all respondents, 61% were willing to share any information about themselves that could be discovered online and did not see the need to limit such sharing.

Several studies have linked Facebook use to lower grades in college. A pilot study in San Diego indicated that students who had signed up for social networking received lower grades than their counterparts who had not. However, over three-quarters of Facebook users claimed that their use of the platform did not affect their studies. According to study co-author Aryn Karpinski, there is no direct causal relationship between Facebook use and lower grades or less studying, but a correlation does exist. A GPA of typically 3.0 to 3.5 was common among Facebook users, while those who had not signed up for the service had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0. Facebook users studied an average of 1 to 5 hours per week, while non-users studied an average of 11 to 15 hours per week. The research surveyed 219 students at Ohio State University, consisting of 117 graduate and 102 undergraduate students, of whom 148 had a Facebook account. Approximately 85% of undergraduate participants had an account, compared with only 52% of graduate students who were Facebook users. Students who participated in extracurricular activities were more likely to use Facebook than those who worked paid jobs and allocated their time accordingly (Karpinski 2009).

A disconnect exists between students' own claims and the study findings regarding GPA: 79% of Facebook users denied that the platform had any impact on their academic performance. In open-ended questions, users claimed that their Facebook use was not frequent enough to have any noticeable impact on their academics. Lower grades cannot necessarily be attributed directly to Facebook use, since other factors are involved — for instance, personality traits.

Some students might have achieved lower grades regardless, since if Facebook were not available, other ways of avoiding studying might have been found. Spending too much time on online socializing may have contributed to lower GPAs. The fact that even graduate students exhibited this behavior is significant, because they typically have GPAs above 3.5; if their Facebook use contributed to lower grades, it represents a notable finding. Facebook has also become popular inside lecture halls. Students permitted by faculty members to use laptops in class have been observed browsing the site during lectures. The effects of Facebook on academic performance are unlikely to disappear soon, and better ways of managing the situation need to be developed (Bugeja 2006).

Initially, Facebook user profiles were visible only to confirmed friends, but accounts are increasingly being opened up so that anyone with an account can view vital information such as addresses, cell phone numbers, and class and work schedules through online search. This information is sometimes used by admissions offices — often without the knowledge of the prospective student — in making certain recruitment and admissions decisions. This is driven by a desire to learn more about students' lives and culture. Many faculty members view this as an interesting way to get to know students.

Conclusion

The fascination with Facebook, like that with other social networking sites, has surpassed the expectations of many. However, this phenomenon is not without its fair share of problems, particularly those which are hard to control because of the huge number of users. The sharing of information has raised significant concern because the ease of access in the online sphere creates serious privacy issues. Whatever is placed online is effectively regarded as public, and therefore the best approach to protecting users is to exercise caution about the information shared on Facebook — this will help limit the ethical and legal issues associated with privacy breaches. Most users are also unaware of the various security and search settings on their Facebook profiles and typically operate with the default configurations. This grants a great deal of access freedom to applications and search engines, which may result in the misuse of user information. It is therefore recommended that users customize these settings to match their preferences and to make their profiles more secure.